


Still is the Unspoken Word

by helsinkibaby



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2154525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>{Spoilers for up the season four finale} Grissom thinks of his past with Sara, and realises that the future is even more uncertain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still is the Unspoken Word

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TS Eliot quote challenge.

__  
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent  
If the unheard, unspoken  
Word is unspoken, unheard;  
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,  
The Word without a word, the Word within  
The world and for the world;  
  
>*<*>*<

For one so learned, who has so many words at his disposal, Gil Grissom is a man of surprisingly few. Reared in a silent household, a ghost who drifted through the halls of his high school, a loner who haunted the science labs at college, the mysteries of human interaction are completely lost on him. He has friends, but no-one close. He dates, but nothing serious. He has never come close to giving anyone his heart, has never fallen in love with someone.

And when it happens, it happens without him even noticing.

When it does happen, ironically enough, it is with a woman who is more like him than he could ever have believed possible. A woman who shares his passion for his work, for science, a woman as driven and committed as he. Also, a woman who is as devoted to her work as he, a woman who has made her work her life, who has not let anyone in, has not let anyone get close to her.

He knows that she would let him get close to her though, and that terrifies him, because in the back of his mind, he knows that he could get close to her too. Close enough to love her, close enough to lose himself in her.

But he doesn’t tell her that. Because he’s never had a successful relationship, wouldn’t know how. Because his father left his mother when he was a child, and he still remembers the pain it caused him, the pain his mother went through. He doesn’t want to go through that again, and even if seeing her every day is sometimes awkward, or uncomfortable, he thinks that that is preferable to one day losing her, not having her at all. Or even worse, hurting her with his taciturn ways.

Most of the time, she seems to understand that, and the feelings between them go unspoken. Sometimes though, they are alluded to, like when he holds her wrists, pins her up against a bloody sheet, looks into her eyes. He knows, in that split second of contact, that he could kiss her, right then and there, and that she would kiss him back. He’s pretty sure that it would not end at kissing, that he could never be satisfied with that, and it’s a relief when she breaks his gaze, walks away from him.

A relief, and a disappointment.

But then she starts talking about a promotion, and about how she doesn’t want something that happened, or didn’t happen, between them to be a factor. She sounds nervous, unsure, and he is so stunned that she is bringing up what’s always been unspoken between them that he has no idea what to say.

So he says nothing, again, and she turns away, muttering about how she always over-talks around him.

He doesn’t tell her that he over-talks around her too.

Like when he sits beside her in the bleachers of a hockey arena, and he mentions his interest in baseball, tells her that it is a beautiful sport.

“Since when are you interested in beauty?” she asks him, her tone dry.

“Since I met you.” The words come unbidden from his mouth, and from the very corner of his eye, he registers the snap of her head towards him, her stunned silence. Keeping his own face neutral is a struggle, but he does it, at least until he can’t see her anymore, when he is heading towards the rink, with her following behind. Then he closes his eyes, shakes his head ever so slightly from side to side as if to clear it, wondering what the hell possessed him to give voice to such words.

Or when the scent of burning fills his nostrils and sirens echo in his ears, and he sees her, sitting lost and alone on the sidewalk. Her face is cut, her eyes glassy and staring, and when he takes her cold hand in his –too cold, some dispassionate part of his mind notes – the deep cut he sees there makes him wince. “Honey, this doesn’t look good,” he tells her, but she is too far gone to notice the term of endearment. Indeed, he only recalls it as he follows Cavello into the damaged lab. Once again, he can only shake his head, wondering what the hell possessed him to give voice to such words.

It doesn’t sound like much, he thinks, when you put it like that. That only twice has he over-talked around her. But that’s still twice more than he’s ever done around anyone else, and he knows all too well what it means.

More disturbing to him are the times when he finds that he cannot speak around her. Like the day she stops by his door on her way home, apologises for missing his page. She tells him that he’d told her to get a life, then expects her to be there at a moment’s notice, that it’s confusing, sounding so upset, so lost that he has to look away, searching for the right thing to say. It has to be the right thing, because the only other time she’d appeared at his door like that, he’d been holding her leave of absence request form in his hand, and everything he said to counter her arguments made the situation worse. He doesn’t want history to repeat itself, so takes time searching for something to say. When he finds something, he doesn’t find out if it’s the right thing or not, because when he looks up, she is gone, the moment gone with her.

Another time he can’t speak to her comes when he is in a victim’s house, investigating a crime that makes real his worst nightmare, in more ways than one. She calls to tell him about something she’s found, offers to come over to help him, but he rushes her off the phone, declines her assistance. The bone-chilling, mind-numbing rush of fear and grief and anger that had enveloped him when he first saw Debbie Marlin’s body is coursing through his system, and he can’t talk to Sara, not with his emotions in such turmoil. And he certainly can’t see her, because he doesn’t know how he would react. So he pushes her away, hangs up the phone, tries to avoid seeing her for the rest of the case.

Silence has always come easy to Grissom, but this time, keeping back the words that are on the tip of his tongue is harder than it’s ever been.

And then he is in the interrogation room, with the man he knows is guilty, and he is running on shock and adrenaline and damn all else. The words, some of them, come out then, and he is too tired, too drained, too caught up in what his life could be to care about stopping them.

“Someone young and beautiful shows up. Somebody we could care about. She offers us a new life, with her. We have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it.”

He couldn’t do it, couldn’t find the words to tell Sara how he felt.

He still can’t, even after that.

So he continues on as he always has, believes that everything is fine, that he is fine, that Sara is fine.

Then he gets a call from the police station, holds her hand, takes her home.

He thinks that things will be fine then, that they will get through this together.

It’s only when she appears on his doorstep the next day and tells him that she is leaving that he realises that they won’t.

>*<*>*<

He is surprised when the doorbell rings, because he is not accustomed to visitors. He is even more surprised when he sees Sara standing there, her hands wedged into the back pockets of her jeans, biting her bottom lip. She looks supremely ill at ease, and her demeanour doesn’t improve at his first words. “Sara,” he says, his voice shockingly neutral. “What are you doing here?”

Her features twist in something that might aspire to being a smile, something that’s more like a grimace. “I need to talk to you,” she says, her gaze flickering from his face to the floor to over his shoulder, never staying anywhere long.

“It couldn’t wait until start of shift?” He doesn’t know why he’s saying these things to her, doesn’t know why he’s not stepping aside to let her into his apartment. But this is the first time that she’s ever been here without the rest of the team, and somehow, he doesn’t feel ready for it, for her.

It occurs to him that that’s pretty much a metaphor for their entire relationship, and he nearly misses her answer. “No,” she says bluntly, the word echoing like a pistol crack through the hallway. “May I come in?”

The formality breaks through his confusion and he steps back, watches her as she walks into his abode, her eyes taking in everything, as if she’s seeing it for the first time. She’d done the same thing when she’d first been here, back during the Strip Strangler case, as had Warrick and Nick, Nick even going so far as to make a whispered joke that he hadn’t believed that Grissom really had a home, that he’d always thought he slept at the lab. Grissom had pretended not to hear, but Sara had caught his eye, her lips twitching almost imperceptibly, and he knew what she was thinking; that they said the same thing about her.

He is brought back to reality when he practically walks into her. She has stopped at one of the many butterfly cases he has on display, is studying them carefully. He opens his mouth to say something, because he doesn’t want to look at those butterflies with Sara there; has never enjoyed the display in the same way since the Debbie Marlin case. Seeing Sara’s face reflected in the glass reminds him too much of Debbie Marlin’s face, pale in death, eyes staring at him, as if begging him for help, and it takes him a second to realise that Sara has turned to him, is staring at him staring at her. When her lips move, the noise seems to take a long time to reach his ears.

“You like these.”

Her voice is so flat that he’s not sure if it’s a statement or a question, so he simply nods. “They’re beautiful creatures,” he says, but he is not looking at the butterflies. If she notices, she reacts not at all. It’s as if her features are carved from marble. “You don’t?” he asks, and it is a question, one that has her shaking her head as she turns her attention back to the glass case.

“I think they’re sad,” she decides, and she must see his curious expression in the glass, because she continues. “Beautiful creatures… pinned down… trapped where people look at them but where they can never be touched…” Her voice trails off and she wraps her arms around herself as a shudder passes through her, that same bitter nearly-smile twisting her lips. “Kinda creepy.”

She’s talking to him without looking at him, and the suspicion forms in Grissom’s mind that he might as well not be there. “Sara, are you ok?”

She glances at him, looks away quickly. “I needed to talk to you… and I didn’t want to do it at the lab. Too many people, too many interruptions and the walls have ears… I thought it would be easier here… though I don’t know why I thought that.” This last is uttered more quietly than the previous, also more slowly, her initial words fired out, machine gun style. “This was never going to be easy.”

There is something in her voice, in her agitated demeanour that concerns him. Sara is never this ill at ease around him, though it strikes him that this is familiar, that he has seen her acting like this before. Then she looks away, her expression a cross between rueful and pained, with something that looks a little like embarrassment mixed in as well, and Grissom remembers. A day where they were all racing the clock, a bloody sheet in an evidence room, her body warm against his, her breath mingling with his as he pinned her against it. And afterwards, when she had talked to him about the promotion she had applied for, how she was worried that what had happened or hadn’t between them would go against her. He’d literally been rendered speechless, and the look on her face when she turned away from him then is the same one that is there now.

All this goes through Grissom’s mind in a split second, returns him to slightly familiar ground. “What was never going to be easy?” He takes a step closer to her, but she turns away from him, putting more distance between them. Her arms are still wrapped around herself, and even from where he’s standing, he can see that her back is rigid, sees the muscles working as she takes a deep breath.

“When you go into your office later,” she tells him. “You’ll find an envelope there. It’s got my leave of absence request form inside. I wanted to tell you before…” Her voice trails off. “Before you saw it,” she concludes, but he’s barely listening, still caught on the first part of her news.

“Leave of absence?” he echoes, and he wants to say something else, knows he should, but once again, she has him suffering from lockjaw. Only a couple of days ago, he talked to her about accumulated vacation time. But a leave of absence – that’s more serious. More permanent, and he doesn’t like the sound of it.

“Yes Grissom,” she says heavily, turning to face him, her eyes sad, her stance resolute. “A leave of absence.”

When she doesn’t say anything else, he knows he has to, so he says the first thing that comes to mind. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

She chuckles, looking down. “Once,” she confirms. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“I remember you changed your mind,” he says, a statement that makes her shake her head, make her half turn from him so that all he can see is her profile. She’s staring at the butterflies again, her face set in stone, so he tries again. “Is this about the promotion?”

A slight shake of the head, other than that, there is no reaction. “No.”

“There’ll be other openings,” he tells her, just in case she’s not being completely honest with him. “You’re a good CSI Sara… the lab needs you.”

Her head turns slowly to look at him, eyes narrowed in unmistakable anger, and he remembers too late that he told her that the last time too. “Great,” she says, and again, he knows that she said that the last time. “That’s just what I needed to hear.”

Her eyes are locked on his, and he couldn’t look away if his life depended on it. “What do you mean?” he asks, not really expecting an answer.

He’s certainly not expecting the one he gets.

“The lab needs me?” she asks, her tone more than a little mocking. “What about the people Grissom? Would they miss me? Would you? Oh, they’d know I wasn’t there, they’d probably realise that I wasn’t around the lab anymore… but you really think Catherine or Nick or Warrick are going to find themselves in the break room saying, ‘Gee, I wonder what Sara’s doing now?’ You think they’re going to tell me to hurry back, that the place won’t be the same without me?”

“Sara-” He tries to get a word in edgewise, fails completely.

“The job was the first thing you thought of when you thought of me,” she accuses. “And you know what? You were right. I get up, I go to work, I come home and I do the same thing every single day. I work weekends, holidays, days off. When I can’t sleep, I read forensics books. When I can, I dream about cases. I can count the number of friends I have in this place on my fingers…” She breaks off, spinning away from him, beginning to pace restlessly around the room, as if the words she’s saying are a physical force, making it impossible for her to stay in one place. “I never used to be like this Grissom,” she says eventually. “In San Francisco… I had friends… hobbies… I worked hard, but not this hard… I had a life Grissom.”

This last is uttered so softly, so plaintively, that it tears at Grissom’s heart. She seems to have talked herself out for the moment, and he takes advantage of the silence to look at her, really look at her for the first time in he doesn’t know how long. She is frowning, reaching up to rub the bridge of her nose, and he can see her hand shaking from clear across the room. Just like he can see her bright eyes and flushed cheeks, just like he can hear her rapid speech, the words she was saying, the emotion she was showing so unlike Sara. A vague, yet undeniable suspicion takes shape in his mind, and slowly, carefully, he asks the question that he’s not altogether sure he wants to ask. “Sara, have you been drinking?”

She throws her head back and laughs, but in a way that tells him she doesn’t find it funny at all. Her hands rise and fall helplessly, and when she meets his gaze, she seems almost angry. “No Grissom,” she tells him bitterly. “I haven’t been drinking. In fact, for the first time in weeks… _months_ … I’m completely sober.”

On the surface, the words are a simple statement of fact. However, Grissom can’t help feeling that there’s more to them that meets the eye, that he’s missing something. “What are you saying?” he asks, because he has to be sure of what she’s thinking, because, and the knowledge hits him suddenly, forcibly, this is too important for misinterpretation.

She laughs again, that same incredulous laugh. “God, you really have no idea, do you?” Her tone is almost pitying, and for no reason he can articulate, he feels the hairs at the back of his neck stand up one by one. “You see me every day… and you have no idea who I am.”

“I know you-” he begins, but she’s not having any of that.

“No, Grissom, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be standing there, gearing up to convince me to stay. And you wouldn’t have spent the last three years running in the opposite direction every time I tried to talk to you about anything remotely personal. I came to Vegas for you. I stayed in Vegas for you. And I did it because I loved you.”

He raises a hand to stop her, because those are the words that he’s prayed to hear, while at the same time praying that he would never hear them.

Then his hand drops, and the words dissipate in his dry throat, because she used the past tense.

“You knew that. I know you did. And if you’d told me that you didn’t feel the same way, that there could never be anything between us, I could have lived with that. I wouldn’t have liked it, but I could have lived with it. But you never told me that Grissom. Instead you gave me just enough hope to keep me here. Just enough to let me see what we could have. And you expect me to work with you, to see that and be reminded of it every day…” Her voice trails off as she shakes her head. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t. It’s killing me Grissom. _You’re_ killing me, and I can’t do it anymore.”

By the time she’s finished, tears are standing in her eyes, and he is standing before her, unable to speak. He opens his mouth, but the only word that comes out is her name. “Sara…” he whispers, and when she sees the look on his face, she shakes her head, turns on her heel in disgust.

“Goodbye Grissom.” The words are the most final thing he’s ever heard, a verbal door slamming, and when she makes her way towards his front door, he knows that he can’t let it end like this. So he follows her, and her fumbling with the door handle lets him catch up to her, allows him to lay his hand on her elbow. She stills, her whole body going rigid, and when she speaks, he knows that it’s costing her everything she has to maintain her composure. “Let me go Grissom.”

“I can’t.” Two of the simplest words in the English language, nowhere near what he needs to say to her, yet all he can say.

She doesn’t move, but is it his imagination, or is her breathing more shallow than usual? He takes another step closer to her, close enough that he can feel the warmth of her body against his, and he knows he’s not imagining her sharp intake of breath. Or the way her voice shakes when she says, “You don’t have any choice.”

“Yes I do. I can ask you to stay.” His hand slides down slowly from her elbow to her wrist, fingers making a perfect circle. He can feel the bone underneath and he wonders absently when she became so fragile. Her skin is paper thin, so thin that he can see as well as feel her pulse pounding through her veins, so delicate that he’s almost afraid to exert any pressure for fear that she will shatter and break.

Another ragged intake of breath from her does nothing to dispel that notion. “It’s too late for that,” she tells him, and he takes a step closer to her, puts his other hand on her shoulder and gently turns her.

Now they are facing one another, staring into one another’s eyes, and whatever she sees in his causes her to take a step back, right into the door. She has nowhere to go, so she stands her ground, and he closes the distance between them, laying both hands on her hips. It is a light touch, light enough for her to break should she wish, but he fancies that he can feel the heat of her skin through the denim of her jeans, wonders if the skin of her hip is as soft as the skin of her wrist, of her hand. He flexes the fingers of his right hand, as if he can find out that way, and the shift in pressure causes her eyes to flutter shut, her breath to escape in a rush. Her lips part slightly, and she is the most desirable creature that Grissom has ever seen.

“Is it, Sara?” he asks her, his voice low, and he feels as well as sees the shiver that courses through her. Her eyes flutter open, flit across his face, finally ending up on his lips, watching him form every word, and he finds himself staring at her lips too. “Is it too late?”

“Grissom…” She’s barely breathing, and at the sight of those lips forming his name, he is lost. Leaning towards her, he brushes her lips with his own in a brief, almost chaste kiss. There’s nothing chaste though, about the blood rushing through his body, about the wave of desire that threatens to bowl him over. He draws away from her, so that he can see her reaction, and one hand moves from her hip to her neck, then up to cup her flushed cheek.

“Sara…” All he says is her name, and her eyes open, lock onto his, wide and unblinking for only a split second.

Because then he is reaching for her, and she is reaching for him and their lips meet in a kiss that is more hungry, more passionate than any he has ever experienced before.

No words are spoken, for none are needed, and he wants to remember every detail, but fleeting snapshots are all that register. Her arms wrapping around his neck, holding onto him as if for dear life. The little gasp she gives when he presses her against the door, using it as leverage to lift her slightly, press himself more intimately against her. Somehow, not really clear on the path they take, leading her to his bedroom, that brief second where he’s sure that she’s going to change her mind, until she begins making short work of the buttons of his shirt. Finding out that the skin of her hip is indeed as soft as the skin of her wrist, softer even. Discovering that she’s ticklish is a delightful surprise, because when he trails his hand over her abdomen just so, she gasps into his mouth, arching up against him, and he does it again, and then again, because he could never get enough of that sound, that sensation. Just like he could never get enough of looking in her eyes as they move together, her hand trailing across his cheek, as if she can’t believe that they’re really doing this, that it’s finally happened after so many months of silence, of hiding from one another. And when he finally collapses, spent, into her arms, feels her press against him, place a kiss in the hollow where his neck meets his shoulder and join her hand with his, he knows he could never get enough of her.

>*<*>*<

He wakes, doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows that something is wrong. He distinctly remembers falling asleep with her in his arms, her hair tickling his nose, but she is not with him now, and the bed is cold where she should be. Frowning, he looks around the room, and when he locates her, he’s hard pressed to keep a smile from spreading across his face. Then he remembers that there is no-one here but the two of them, and he remembers anew where they are and why they’re here, and he lets the smile come.

She is standing at his window, staring through the slits in the blind at the city below. It must be evening, because the sun is going down, the fading light bathing her in a golden glow. She is wearing his shirt, the shirt that he vaguely remembers her tearing from his body, throwing it across the room, and he wonders if she realises that it barely preserves her modesty. He wonders if she cares; he certainly doesn’t. She is the very definition of a contradiction in terms, because on one hand, he’s never seen her like this, and he wants to fix the image in his memory. On the other hand, he’d much rather have her beside him, the shirt once more decorating the floor.

He’s not sure how long he looks at her, and in all that time, she doesn’t move, and the longer she stays there like that, the more he finds himself wondering what he should say to her. He finally settles for the word that worked so well the last time he spoke; her name. “Sara.”

She turns to look at him, and his heart lurches in his chest. He doesn’t pretend to be an expert in so-called morning after encounters, but he’s reasonably sure that red eyes and tear-stained faces are something of a no-no. Neither of those signs alarm him as much as the smile that she sends his way. It is wide and tremulous and he has to swallow hard before he can speak again.

“What are you doing over there?” he asks, keeping the question simple, his voice light.

She looks down and away, towards the window and the world outside. “I… ah… I couldn’t sleep.”

Nothing unusual there; Sara is famous for her need for little sleep. But there’s something in her voice that tells him loud and clear that that’s not what she means. “You could have woken me,” he points out, and she meets his eyes then, shakes her head quickly.

“No I couldn’t,” she whispers, and he wants to contradict her, but she’s not done speaking. “I have to go Grissom.”

But despite her words, she stays where she is, and Grissom blinks, not quite sure what she means. “Go where?” he asks.

She reaches up with a shaking hand, pushes her hair back from her face, and she doesn’t look at him. Turning, she moves across the room, finds her blouse, her jeans, her underwear, piles them on the bed. As she moves, she doesn’t speak, and with every item of clothing found, he knows she’s moving further and further away from him. He wants to stop her, but he can’t find the words, so he just studies her as she dresses, waits for her to speak.

When she is once more fully clothed, she finally looks at him, her face registering surprise when she sees that he hasn’t moved. She clears her throat, looks to the door. “My leave of absence form is on your desk,” she tells him again, just like she did when she first arrived here. “You’ll sign it, won’t you?”

His eyes narrow, his mouth opening in shock, then closing again. “You’re leaving?” Because he can’t believe that she would do that, not after what they’ve just done, not after how long it’s taken them to get here.

She nods. “I have to,” she tells him, and even when tears come to her eyes, this time, she does not look away. “And if I mean anything to you, you’ll let me go.”

“If you mean…” Disbelief laces his voice. “Sara…”

She silences him with one hand extended, shaking her head. “Please don’t.” The quiet desperation in her voice quietens him, and her shoulders rise and fall in a shuddering sigh. “I made a decision before I came here tonight… and no matter what…” Her voice breaks off, and he thinks she’s going to look away, but she doesn’t, just takes a deep breath and starts again. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she tells him, and that, at least, he can reply to.

“You’re Sara Sidle,” he tells her. “You’re the woman I-”

“Don’t Grissom.” Her voice is pained, her eyes closed, and she looks as if he’s struck her. “If you say that…” She opens her eyes slowly, lets out a long breath. “This isn’t about you,” she tells him. “This is about me… and the last couple of years, the choices I’ve made, the things I’ve done… I’m not happy Grissom. And I’m not some puzzle that you can piece together and make everything right for… I need to do this myself.”

She is talking to him, so earnest, just like she does every time she explains a case to him, makes some kind of argument to him. He’s seen her like this before, when she’s so sure of her point of view, so definite on her course of action. He loves watching her argue with him like that, loves how her voice becomes animated, her eyes dancing, hands moving at speed as if to illustrate her point.

Then memory gives way to reality, and he realises that her voice is flat, her eyes are dull and her hands are at her sides.

When was the last time he saw that fire in her eyes, that passion in what she was doing? That sense of self-belief and complete self-confidence that bowled him over?

Where was the smiling grad student who had approached him after one of his lectures, eyes curious, enthusiasm contagious, who had asked him a well-thought out question on a point he’d made, who’d invited him for coffee to talk it over? The woman who had, when their conversation had stretched on past coffee, convinced him that they might as well carry on the conversation over dinner?

Where was the woman who challenged him, who made him think, the only person that he knew he could call at any and all hours of the day or night and she’d always be there for him to bounce ideas off?

Where was the woman who greeted him with a smile and a smart comment as he and Nick tossed simulation dummies off a Vegas hotel roof? Then, she had been bright and vivacious, brimming with youth and energy and health.

That’s how he always thought of her, how he always saw her.

But now she stands in his bedroom, halfway to the door, and he sees her pale skin, the dark shadows underneath her eyes. He sees her as she was, standing in his shirt and nothing else, and he sees the weight that she’s lost, too much, he’s sure, to be healthy. He remembers from last night the thinness of her wrist, how he could circle it with his hand, how it felt fragile enough to break in two. He remembers too the soft skin of her hip, her back, realises how the haze of emotion had blinded him to how he could so easily feel her hipbone, how he could have literally counted her ribs had he so wished.

And he remembers words he said to her not so long ago, the truth of which he was only realising now.

“I haven’t seen you for a while, have I?”

She’d looked him right in the eye that day, her reply cutting him dead. “You see me every day.”

They’d both been right and they’d both been wrong, but he was seeing her now, and the change in her horrified him.

“God Sara,” he whispers. “What have I done to you?”

Her mouth opens slightly, her shoulders, her entire upper body, shaking with something that is very like a sob. She looks upward, looks away, and he sees her throat working furiously. “Nothing I didn’t let happen,” she tells him, meeting his eyes. “That’s why I need to get away from here Grissom… and I need you not to ask me to stay. Because I might not be able to say no.”

He holds her gaze for a long moment, then dips his head just slightly, the barest inclination of a nod. She nods once in reply, continuing her journey to the door, and he intends to let her go, just as she asked. “Sara?” His own voice is a surprise to him, and to her, judging by her rapid turn. “The last time… I told you the lab needed you.”

Her smile is faintly bitter, mostly sad. “I remember.”

“It’s not just the lab, you know.”

It’s the closest he can come to telling her what he really wants to say, and she must know that, because the tears that have long been threatening break free spill down her cheeks. “I’ll be back,” she tells him, and he wants so much to believe those words, but he’s very afraid she’s lying, whether she knows it or not.

For now, he looks on the bright side. “I’ll be here,” he replies.

She looks as if she’s going to say something in reply, but visibly thinks better of it, tapping her hand lightly on the door, then walking through it. Grissom stays where he is, keeps his eyes trained on that door, hoping against hope that she will walk back through it, and it could be wishful thinking, but it seems to take longer than it usually might for him to hear his front door open and close.

Just in case, he stays for an extra few minutes, staring at the door, still waiting for her to walk through it.

She doesn’t.

>*<*>*<

That night, he goes into the lab, like it is just another ordinary night. And sure enough, just as she had said it would be, there is an envelope on his desk, his name written on it in her sprawling script. He sits, holds the envelope in his hand for a long moment, then just as slowly slides his index finger underneath the flap, opening it up and taking out the form.

A crazy sense of déjà vu washes over him, because he remembers sitting in this very position a number of months ago, looking at the same form and the same writing. He’d looked up from his desk to see her standing there, had talked to her about it, ending up with her walking out on him. And later, he’d sent her a plant, and she’d stayed.

He looks up now, hoping that history will repeat itself, but his doorway remains empty, and he knows that he will not see her tonight. She said she had to go, and she meant it. There is nothing he can do to change things any more, no matter how much he might want to.

So he sighs, bows to the inevitable and reaches for a pen. He signs on the line beside her name, traces that inscription just once before he puts the form into his out tray, knowing that he needs to get the paperwork in motion as soon as possible.

That, at least, is one good thing he can do for her.

He knows that he has to go to the break room, talk to the rest of the team. He will have to tell them about Sara, arrange for a replacement, re-assign her cases in the meantime.

But for once in his life, Grissom doesn’t hurry from his office. Instead, he looks at blue writing on a brown envelope, and he thinks about Sara, and the last thing she said to him.

“I’ll be back.”

There are some who might think that she was letting him down gently, that it was a pat phrase designed to make walking out on him easier. But not Grissom.

He knows that she’ll come back, because there are words that she still needs to hear from him, words that he never got a chance to say out loud, only trace on her skin with his touch.

He’s waited a long time to say those words.

He can wait a little longer.


End file.
